knives wrote:I have to admit I don't understand this assumption that religious Jews watch movies?

The synagogues bring their members for a special trip to the movies by watching something that's reflective of their theology.

As Fraublucher said they definitely don't. Maybe a few stray weirdos would protest it, but otherwise I wouldn't be surprised if they simply didn't know it existed. Some of these people, mostly the Burrow Park sort than the Williamsburg sort, are basically Amish when it comes to film with even nature films being considered a waste of time and potentially inappropriate. The hipsters that live with them might be attracted to smugly watch though.

Nadine Labaki's Capernaum is getting some best-of-the-festival notices on Twitter and being hailed as a strong Palme d'Or contender, although two or three criticize its sentimental third act. A 15-minute standing ovation was reported.

Ribs wrote:I do not believe in any scenario in which this movie released by any distributor makes $15 million domestic, just because by virtue of it being a foreign language film it won't go into wide release. The goal is probably for like $5 million, but I can also imagine a path for this movie where American audiences just don't want to go see the weird sex thing and it makes less than $2 million and doesn't expand beyond 150 screens.

Just to put things into context, $15 million would make it the highest-grossing non-Indian foreign-language release since Instructions Not Included in 2013, and $5 million would put it roughly even with the most successful such release of 2017 (Your Name). I can't imagine $15m even if A24 were crazy enough to give it a wide release, given how The Grandmaster ($6.6m) and The Raid 2 ($2.6m) fared on over 800 screens.

I would say more than two or three, although I've been skeptical from the start upon reading its synopsis, that it's from Labaki, The Kid comparisons, and everyone tripping over each other to pick it up. I'm sure there's much to recommend in it---I haven't seen it after all---but I really don't trust it to not be needlessly maudlin. It seems a nice consensus and might recency effect its way to the Palme, but it seems the jury can do better with this apparently great edition of Cannes. Again, I obviously haven't seen it, but the thing screams Friendly Foreign.

In other news, even though it's just a handful of critics, Burning topped Toni Erdmann's ScreenGrid record at 3.8.

Poetry topped my top ten list for that year, but I hadn't followed Lee's career since then, so I was quite surprised that not only was Burning his first film in all that time but that he had actually been blacklisted by the same disgusting administration whose president was convicted and imprisoned. (Apparently he and thousands of others were blacklisted because the minister of culture was told that film industry was moving too much to the left and needed to shift to the right.)

I'm so excited for this movie and am really hopeful it finds US distribution ASAP - hopefully through IFC or Kino like his last two and not SPC or something that might resign its eventual US release to the MOD state of the previous record-holder.

I'm a little bemused by how many movies are premiering to "instant favorite for Palme" reactions from here and elsewhere - in the several years I've really been paying any attention to the films playing I can't remember such a diverse group of generally well-liked films. However, Cannes since 2014 has thrown a bit of a curve ball each year with the Palme winners, so I really so no reason to make any predictions at all, as it's just as likely to end up being the Christopher Honore film then any of the things that seem to have gotten a bit more attention. Which is totally fine - the point of the prize isn't to be a consensus favorite, and if it goes to something weird it could result in something getting distribution that wouldn't otherwise.

2016 was really the only outlier. 2015 still gave two of the three top prizes to Competition's most acclaimed (Assassin, Son of Saul) and there seemed to be some sort of a dispute between Dolan and the Coens over Carol, perhaps resulting in Dheepan. There wasn't much enthusiasm at that post-awards press conference. Last year, You Were Never Really Here picked up two prizes, BPM snagged the Grand Prix, and The Square was near-the-top of best received.

Omensetter wrote:2016 was really the only outlier... there seemed to be some sort of a dispute between Dolan and the Coens over Carol, perhaps resulting in Dheepan. There wasn't much enthusiasm at that post-awards press conference.

Todd Haynes’s Carol, widely tipped for big prizes, had to make do with a shared Best Actress for Rooney Mara – the explanation being that Dolan had far less time for it than anyone else, and may have resorted to some toys-out-of-pram tactics to block it from higher consideration... The jury also got a final dig in. When Dolan said, “I somehow feel like a better person” towards the end of the jury press conference, Gyllenhaal was simply heard to mutter, “You’re not.”

knives wrote:As Fraublucher said they definitely don't. Maybe a few stray weirdos would protest it, but otherwise I wouldn't be surprised if they simply didn't know it existed. Some of these people, mostly the Burrow Park sort than the Williamsburg sort, are basically Amish when it comes to film with even nature films being considered a waste of time and potentially inappropriate. The hipsters that live with them might be attracted to smugly watch though.

Burrough Park was the neighborhood I referred to in my earlier post. That neighborhood borders with Bensonhurst. I pretty much lived on the street that divides the two. It was very interesting with a big Italian American population and Hasidim population intermingling and not always in a get along way.

I just watched the trailer to Menashe. It will be interesting to see what kind of response it gets from it's community. The following is a Q&A with Joshua Weinstein and the lead principals. This will give you a little insight into that world.

It's always nice to have a three-year old memory corrected. I even linked to DarkImbecile's article in the Dheepan thread upon its Criterion announcement.
------

This Labaki is starting to get slammed. It might well prove the most divisive of the festival. I suppose this is what happens when the follow-up to a TIFF's Audience Award winner plays Cannes. Like, it's getting slammed by some more mainstream critics from outlets like Indiewire that I don't bother with unless I'm trying to get a sense of a film that I won't see for months. I suppose we'll see later tonight or anytime now?

knives wrote:I have to admit I don't understand this assumption that religious Jews watch movies?

The synagogues bring their members for a special trip to the movies by watching something that's reflective of their theology.

Not sure there are a lot of movies catering to that market.

In the 90s I lived Stamford Hill, a part of London largely populated by Orthodox Jews. There often were boys with sidelocks hanging out at the local video store, watching the movies which were playing on monitors there. I once asked a couple of them why and they said they didn’t have a television at home and they weren’t allowed to go to the cinema. Like any teenagers they were rebelling in little ways. I once found a group of boys outside my door where they weren’t seen by their family, with a boombox listening to hip hop, smoking.

It wasn’t just the kids though, I found that extreme repression resulted in a lot of transgressive acts by adult men. Gay cruising, exibitionism (one older man regularly used to expose himself to non-orthodox women on public transport) I saw it all. The community even had its own transvestite in orthodox female garb, who used to clump around late at night, trying to flirt with men and speaking in a falsetto voice.

furbicide wrote:Having watched that now, I'm not actually sure that comment was meant as anything other than a playful dig – there certainly didn't look to be any malice intended.

Yeah, when I initially watched it, Gyllenhaal came off as more endearing. At first, his doggedness to get his quip in seemed a gesture belying a deeper rift that can easily occur in these high-stakes subjective deliberations, but there's no reason for me (and the media) to project maliciousness when there's no evidence of it. In the clip, Gyllenhaal ensured that Dolan saw him grinning, which really just seems to indicate that Gylenhaal wanted to ensure that Dolan knew he wasn't coming after him. It's probably time to retire that Cannestroversy and admit that it stems from scorned Carol fans and Dolan detractors like myself. Gyllenhaal is, after all, starring in Audiard's latest film.

UCR Award: Border by Ali Abbasi
UCR Jury Prize: The Dead and the Others by João Salaviza and Renée Nader Messora
UCR Award for Best Director: Sergei Loznitsa for Donbass
UCR Jury Award for Best Performance: Victor Polster for Girl
UCR for Best Screenplay: Meryem Benm'Barek-Aloïsi for Sofia

(Bi Gan will be fine.)

The Queer Palme went to Lukas Dhont's Girl.
------Capernaum, Knife + Heart, Ayka, and The Wild Pear Tree seemed to have been crammed in at the end, with the latter being three hours. Perhaps as a result, I don't really have a gauge on Ayka. Mixed, at least. The Wild Pear Tree is just plumb picking up raves to end up this festival of seemingly endless raves. Now, to see the films in a few months/years (still need to find a way to see A Gentle Creature and Sieranevada), if not longer if no one picks up the fifteen films currently unspoken for in competition, to say nothing of the other sidebars.

Lee Chang-dong and Lukas Dhont also won the FIPRESCI awards.
-----
Briefly, on Ceylan: For some reason, I love him just coming here every three-to-four years with a three-hour film in which he sincerely engages in big issues that are as old as imaginale. Anatolia (still his peak) and Winter Sleep were masterful, and I'm pressed to think of another director at the moment that does what he does. His films are fairly unfashionable and he'll probably find himself out of fashion at some point in the future, but he cares about what he engages in all the same.

I won't see it until its release in August, but I'm hearing rumors of a Spike Lee victory which I already strong disagree with based on the inclusion of some footage I won't spoil. I'll get over it if it happens obviously, but it's just what I'm hearing. I really think they should just give it to Rohrwacher. By all accounts, her film is Palme-worthy (whatever that means) and it'll put an end to the Campion statistic that is trotted out every year. Better her than Labaki, it would seem.

Apparently, Chang Chen really loved Jia's film. He's still young, but Jia might find himself in the list of great directors who debuted at Cannes and never won the Palme. Perhaps he'll abandon his tripartite structure next decade.